Lessons in Love
by Avatar Korra
Summary: Yes, I realize this is a stupid title. But has it occurred to anybody out there that Mai probably hasn't yet seen Zuko with his scar? Here's a Maiko fic with a twist. Completed.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Okay, I'm not expecting to get many guy readers with this title. I know it sounds like a cheesy chick flick, but it's really not like that. This story is a different take on Mai. Namely, she is evil and shallow. All right, now that that's out of the way, read and enjoy! And review. And be nice and constructive in your reviews. And tell people about it. And for God's sake, brush your teeth!

**Disclaimer: **As far as I know, I don't own Avatar. But I keep looking for my name in the credits anyway.

Lessons in Love Chapter One 

"_Cartwheels aren't a game, dumb-dumb."_

_Mai's glossy black hair, confusion written on her alabaster face._

_The flaming apple. He didn't know Mai, but he couldn't watch her get hurt._

_The cold fountain water swallowing him._

_Mai's body beneath him. He leaped up as if lightning had stricken him when he realized this._

Gasping for air, it took Zuko a minute before he realized he was on dry land, thousands of miles and many, many years away from that place, that moment.

He was camped at the base of a tall chain of mountains. Alone. Deep down, Zuko appreciated Iroh's help and affection, but it made him feel weak and he could never show weakness nor be subjected to it. Only by strength of body and mind would the Avatar ever be his. Ultimately, the uncle and nephew were too different to stay together long.

Zuko sat down to ponder this dream. It must have been triggered by his meeting with Azula the other day, in the ghost town. He hadn't seen or even thought of Mai for three years. She dwelled on the far horizon of his mind in a chapter of his life that Zuko didn't frequently look back to. But now he had to look back, the setting of this dream had sparked a thousand other memories, which in turn brought back a thousand more.

These uncomfortable, suppressed memories left Zuko unable to sleep any longer. He lit a fire, gazing into the swirling flames and trying unsuccessfully to stop the flow of reminiscences from the Fire Nation from pouring into his tormented mind.

A/N: Short chapter, I know. Don't be intimidated by the five chapters, they're all really tiny.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

The three girls trekked onward in their search for the fugitives. Last time she had counted, they had been chasing five. Now Azula reported that there were six. But Mai was too tired to count, and definitely too tired to be riding across the countryside on the back of her lizard. Leave it to Azula to go the extra mile to impress her father.

"Can we stop already, Azula?" Ty Lee whined. Azula's only reply was a dark glare at the exhausted girl. She couldn't expect Ty Lee to understand. The Avatar and Zuko's trails could not get cold. And if traveling all night (without the tank to give away their location) was the way to catch up, she would do it.

Mai knew there was no dissuading the princess, and she was disgusted with Ty Lee's inability to suck it up and keep trudging on. That was what Mai did every day of her boring life, wasn't it?

"Wait." Azula stopped the girls dead in their tracks. Her eyes lit up as she pointed out a miniscule column of smoke in the distance. Mai wouldn't have noticed it even had it been midday instead of midnight.

"It looks as though we have found our prey," Azula smirked.

"Finally," gushed Ty Lee. Mai looked at her disapprovingly. "What, you were thinking it, I just said it," she retorted.

"Shut up. I don't want you two loudmouths giving us away," ordered the princess. "Now, we don't even know if this is someone we're after. But if we get close enough and it is, here's what we do…" her voice shrank to a whisper as the girls plotted out their ambush.

A/N: Another short chapter. Don't be whiny, you know you love getting a good story without having to read an epic novel! 


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Zuko continued to stare into the flames, watching the fiery dance while simultaneously watching his flood of memories pass before his eyes.

_This was it. _

_Barely being able find the voice to speak out, the sound was lost to the air surrounding him and to the gazes of his subjects._

"_Father, I only want what's best for the fire nation! I am your loyal son."_

_The look in his father's face that he would never forget, whether it was one of hatred, disappointment, or wicked glee, Zuko was not sure._

_He had searched his memory many times for a sign of regret on that face, but he had found none._

"_You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher." _

He felt a burning pain. Surely the memory did not hold the power to harm his physical body again, did it?

His reverie had left him dazed and confused, but this time he was going to fight it. He was older, stronger. Three years had passed and his father could not take advantage of him anymore. He blocked the fiery blows and sent his own hurtling back at his attacker.

"Not again, Father! Not again! I can give it back!" he screamed, remembering his breakthrough on the mountaintop. A cold laughter stopped him in his tracks. Was it his father? It was his laugh, but not his laugh at the same time.

The air swallowed the flames from the battle, leaving him in the dark with an unmistakable silhouette before him. It was Azula.

"Oh, you can give it back now, can you, Zuzu?" she chuckled. "I'd like to see you try. No doubt that would be very amusing. Perhaps you'll get the chance to see Father pretty soon anyway, won't you?"

Heavy cuffs were instantly clapped on Zuko's wrists and he was tightly bound with rope that cut into his flesh. He couldn't see his captors, but he knew them. Ty Lee and Mai.

Zuko didn't say anything. He had nothing left to say, and it was better quit now before Azula got even farther ahead. He couldn't remember ever winning an argument against her, and now he was in no position to win a battle against her _and_ her friends.

"Now that was easy," Azula cackled. Ty Lee laughed along, but Mai sighed. Everything was always so easy. Still, a new kind of excitement filled her. After so long and although it was too dark to see each other, she was finally with Zuko again! The thought hadn't crossed her mind yet that she was his captor and would soon be leading him back to his doom.

What wouldn't be easy was Azula's next decision. Did she take Zuko back to the Fire Nation now, or bring him with her as she captured the Avatar? It would be wonderful to see the look on his face when she succeeded, but he would have to be bound the whole time and could never leave her sight. She would have to meditate on this one.

A/N: I actually should have fused this chapter with the next one, but then it would be really long and not match the first two. And that would bug the crap out of me, being as extremely obsessive-compulsive as I am.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Azula couldn't think straight in the campsite, what with her brother tied to a tree (No doubt staring at her. She could feel his presence even in the dark.) and the snores of her exhausted companions distracting her. A nearby hill laid out against the starry sky called to her, and after alerting Mai and Ty Lee of her intentions, she set off to be alone.

A blush from when she had grasped the prince's arm still filled Mai's cheeks. A feeling, so alien to her after three years, filled her heart with a tingling and longing. She was thankful for the darkness that concealed her emotions from Ty Lee (who was asleep anyway), and most especially from Zuko. At the same time she wished for the day to come and reveal his face to her. She had missed that face.

Sleep evaded her. Should she say something to him? Azula was gone and Ty Lee was asleep. This was her chance! Mai's thoughts circled endlessly, growing more and more outrageous. Maybe she could free him and they would run away together and join the Earth Kingdom. Sure, he might not be in love with her and he might try to kill her once she untied him, but that was the adventure she had been looking for!

Soon Mai began thinking about her days in the Fire Nation, too, and all the feelings she had had for Zuko. He was the cutest boy in the whole country! His gorgeous face and silky hair. Spying on his training sessions, his school lessons, watching him walk around the palace. Mai had been quite the little stalker.

Zuko wasn't always nice to her and had mostly ignored her; in fact, he had never talked to her at all, but that really hadn't mattered to the small girl. Personality wasn't a factor in her attraction to him. He was her prince charming anyway.

Zuko thought it best to take his incarceration in stride, wait till the time was right. Then he could escape. But the more he thought about it, the more hopeless it all became. He would never be without guard, and never be without chains. His only hope was if Iroh decided to come back for him, and even then, could the two stand up to Azula's mastery of firebending, Ty Lee's knowledge of pressure points, and Mai's hidden weapo…

Mai. His dream returned to him. Why would Azula have been so anxious to have him knock _Mai_ into the fountain? Why not Ty Lee? The answer was simple. To inflict pain on as many people as possible, that was why Azula did everything. Mai would have been supremely embarrassed after that incident. He remembered how Mai would never look him in the eye when he had known her, how she always blushed and got quiet. She liked him!

How had he not seen that? It was obvious to him with a maturer retrospect. Zuko was a bit embarrassed himself. No one had ever felt that way about him before, and come to think of it, Mai was very, well… she was beautiful. And so quiet and thoughtful, never annoying like Ty Lee. She was a very talented warrior.

Zuko was flattered. Mai seemed out of his reach, and yet she liked him anyway! Was it possible that she could be in love with him? After all, he wasn't the most pleasing thing to look at. She had probably gotten over him long ago… but wait! She had not seen him after the Agni Kai, after he got his scar! There may be a chance that she still… but it would be so hard to… It was his only hope.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Zuko took a deep breath. "Mai," he whispered.

Little did he know that Mai was giddily sitting up in the campsite, dreaming that perhaps he would whisper her name. She could barely believe it when he did.

She crept over to him. "Zuko?" she whispered back.

This was it. No mistakes here or all chance of escape would be gone. "Mai, I, uh, need to ask you something. I mean, I know something," he stumbled over his words. Zuko had never had this kind of conversation before.

"What is it?" Mai remembered to keep to her bored persona, to hide the anxiety in her heart.

Zuko was not one for fluff. It was better to be blunt and get it over with. "You liked me in the Fire Nation when we were little. And you know how I mean."

What a romantic way of putting it, Mai thought sarcastically to herself. Had he always been so straightforward? Suddenly she remembered that he had just put her on the spot.

Ever elusive, Mai replied with another question. "What about it?"

Zuko was silent for a minute. What did he say next? Here was a girl who had chosen him out of every man in the world, and she was the only one who could get him out of this mess. He had to say something, and it had to be good.

"I liked you too. I still do," he said, trying his best to sound earnest and feeling guilty about deceiving her so. People were always at their most vulnerable when they were in love.

Mai was in shock. Could he be lying? But he sounded so honest, and Mai had always been able to pick out a liar. If only she could have seen his eyes when he said it, she would know for certain. People's eyes always gave them away first. Still, she knew that his honor would compel him to tell her the truth. Her mind was made up; there was no time to lose.

"What are you doing?" he asked her quietly.

"Untying you. We have to get out of here before Azula returns," she replied as her fingers stumbled blindly over the knots.

That had been easy, Zuko thought. Almost too easy. Obviously she still loved him, and he felt remorse that he was playing a trick on her, a trick with deadly consequences.

As if a symbol of their reunion, the sun began to rise over the eastern horizon, illuminating all that it touched with its rays. "Hurry," Zuko urged her as she struggled with the key in his handcuffs. "Almost there," she replied. This was it; she was really going to betray Azula for love of him. The very thought made her fingers shake and her knees tremble.

She watched as the sunlight fell on the ground around her, along with the handcuffs and ropes.

The light revealed her own hands, quaking with fear and excitement at the same time. Zuko was turning around; she was standing up to meet him; their eyes were about to meet for the first time in three years, drawn out into a lifetime of agony. She remembered how it felt the few times in the past, those few times that she had looked into their wide golden depths. She looked into Zuko's face, and she saw…

Horror. A nightmare. A wicked scar spreading across his left eye. Crimson as blood, but expelling a blackness. His eye, once beautiful, was reduced to an angry slit, like the eye of a snake. His eyebrow was gone, his ear disfigured into a lump of burned flesh. This scar, it marred his once princely face beyond recognition.

This new face filled her with fear and crushing disappointment, for she realized that Zuko did not exist anymore. Prince Zuko had died in the Agni Kai she had so often heard about, and left this monster in his place.

Epiphany struck Mai in the face like an ugly rhino; she had not fallen in love. She had never been in love. Love was not physical attraction; it was something deeper than that. It was two souls who were created for the purpose that they might someday meet and be joined as one. How could Mai and Zuko have ever had that? They had never even spoken to one another before now, never shared secrets with one another, never gazed into each other's eyes, and, in short, never experienced anything together at all.

The attraction Mai had once felt for Zuko faded from her deluded mind. Young Mai had imagined such things about him, not the woman that she had since become. Young Mai was a fool.

"I am sorry, I have made a mistake," she said quietly, once she was over her shock. She avoided his eyes, avoided his whole face. The sight of it turned her stomach.

"What is that supposed to mean?" he asked, surprised. His plan was taking a frightening turn of events.

"It means I don't love you. I never have. And I never will, because I could never love a man who is…" she trailed off.

Zuko had a feeling that he knew what was coming. He said it anyway. "Who is what?" he asked her.

"Who is disfigured," she finished firmly, looking him resolutely in the eye at last. Her voice had a cold edge to it that matched her steely gaze. That edge cut into Zuko like a knife.

When she spoke again, her bored tone had returned. She was too good for him, and that sentiment was reflected in every syllable of her speech. "Just get out of here," she ordered him.

Zuko did so without a backward glance. She would figure out sooner or later that he had deceived her, used her. She had deceived him, too, hadn't she? Pretending to love him when all she had ever cared about were his looks. She deserved this.

When Azula found out about his escape, well, he would leave Mai to deal with that. She was the one who had decided to free such a repulsive, "disfigured" monster, and she would be the one to deal with the consequences.

After all, he had gotten all that he had wanted: freedom, a second chance at the Avatar, and a second chance at his honor.

Apparently he was willing to step on anyone and anything to get it.


End file.
